Thursday, July 24, 2008

Things God Has Shown Me This Week

Coming back from CIY (the intense week-long summer conference we take our High Schoolers to each summer) is always a struggle. You go from a week of constant focus on God and His work to the reality of trying to live out new commitments in your old, bad-habit filled life. But this week has been different than others in some ways. God has shown me many things this week, in my own life and the lives of others. Just thought I'd share a few.

1. My whole existence is because of Him. The fact that I can breathe and my heart beats. The fact that the sun rises every morning. The fact that I have food and clothing and shelter. The fact that I have a beautiful, super-amazing wife and three (almost four) insane yet healthy children is all because of Him and I should remember to praise Him for that.

2. God works in the quiet things sometimes more than the loud things. Watching Wednesday night as students prayed for each other, wrote on the prayer wall, prayed for things on the prayer wall, served by cleaning and moving stuff, bringint friends, talking to people after service, I realized that the change of God isn't necessarily always this big fanfare but often it is a heart that purposes to do the right thing even when no one is watching.

3. That students really want to change. How awesome it has been to hear story after story from young people this week how they are starting to change habits. Reading their Bible everyday. Journaling prayers. Deleting inappropriate media. Watching GodTV and liking it! Let's keep encouraging each other in these commitments.

4. That just about all that we do is because we want to be loved and accepted. More on this in an upcoming post.

These are just a few things I've seen this week. What has God shown you this week?

2 comments:

Cody
said...

mark,

God has shown me sooo... many things through the time i have been here. i feel that i have grown so much in my walk with christ. i have become a totally different person. i have been reading my bible alot more often, almost every day now( thats my goal). my mom says that ive been a completely different person. and i beleive that he is nowhere done with me. i was just talking to somebody the other day and they told me that ive really become on fire for God. and this is a big change for me, ive been, or so it seems like, lukewarm for all my life. its a new experience and i love it. i may not have gone to your CIY, ive been going through my own. i cant wait to see what i become when God is done with me!

ciy was rough for me. the worship was really uplifting, and amazing this year. I absolutly loved it. And I think that was my strong suit this year. And the speakers really hit me hard with a lot of questions that I needed to ask myself.

But I think the thing that made it difficult was that everything came so negatively to me.

The very first night the speaker talked about how we're 'moved' all the time, but we tend to be left standing.

And I can see that plainly in my life. And to me...that was a real problem because it brought to my attention something I'd noticed before....that I was counting on that emotion to be close to God, instead of living every day, every high and low point, for him.

And that turned into a frustration, and carried on throughout the rest of the week.

I think encounter time was difficult too. They asked a lot of tough things, and brought out several different ideas about action we need or should take...and I really struggled with that because I feel that I'm too shy, too timid, or just too...ordinary? to be able to do anything. I just could not (can not) see what kind of talent I have that God wants me to use.

Being bold was a difficult day for me because of the shy factor. Community was too, since we had to go meet kids from different youth groups. I lucked out though so brittany and frank were in the same group as me.

I don't know. It was just a rough week. And I'm still filtering through all the information they gave us.

About Me

Life was never meant to be this way! The discouragement, disappointment, loneliness of our world are symptoms of a broken system. 180 is committed to sharing the truth that there is another way - another world that is possible. This blog is just one way that we are trying to be a relevant voice of truth amid a chorus of confusion.